"Using the Russell 3000 as a universe, we see that the top 20 corporates with the most cash on their balance sheets at the end of 2012 hold over $650 billion - almost 40% of all the cash and marketable securities of Russell 3000 companies," writes Shoup. "And among those top 20 companies, cash balances have grown between 15-20% for the last year, while the rest of the companies have seen far lower growth in the 0-5% range (see figure)."
It gives you a sense of how skewed things can be in the financial markets.